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Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

Political stances are mutable. I won't argue your point about whether she should be despised for the rate of her mutability. I'm pointing out the flaw in your analogy. Someone taking a stance that contradicts a past stance is not in the same category as someone saying something that contradicts an observable/measurable quantity, unless you are in a possession of a mind-reading device and can observe Clinton's current belief regarding gay marriage.

Your analogy would work if you said liberals give Clinton a pass for flip-flopping while hating Trump for flip-flopping on abortion. AFAIK, liberals hate Trump for his current stance and actions on abortion rights, not for being a flip-flop (i.e. they'd be fine if the flip-flop happened in the other direction)

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> taking a stance that contradicts a past stance is not in the same category as someone saying something that contradicts an observable/measurable quantity

I mean that may be true in some sort of epistemological sense, but pragmatically both are equally ridiculous. The fact that something could be true doesn't make it any less false.

... just to make sure I'm understanding the conversation right, you're saying that not having the same political views over a 20-year period and lying about objective reality are equally ridiculous?

I'm saying if you were to do some sort of bayesian analysis, I think you'd find the probabilities of each to be approximately equal. (E.g. within 5%.)

I'm talking specifically though about HRC believing all of HRC's stated positions, not about a random person changing their opinions over the course of time. The probability calculus there is very different. E.g. the Clintons literally hire people to survey the public to tell them what policies to campaign on, that's how they came up with the idea of adding v-chips to TVs or whatever. The Adam Curtis documentary Century of the Self goes into this in depth.

Why is it always or even generally wrong when politicians in a representative republic are interested in appealing to the electorate? We have a system of government in which a single man is given 4 years of relative impunity to act on the behalf of a hugely diverse population of ~250 million human beings. I don't believe that him compromising to popular opinion is prima facie a net negative.

edit:

> I'm saying if you were to do some sort of bayesian analysis, I think you'd find the probabilities of each to be approximately equal. (E.g. within 5%.)

What would be the dataset and the priors for this Bayesian analysis? Which presidents haven't changed in response to events and changing beliefs and political realities?

I was gonna say that too—I'm sort of impressed that "this politician listens to the people they're representing too much" is a criticism now. Probably came from the same brilliant minds who gave us "she was overprepared for the debate, we need a president who doesn't take their job seriously."

(And I think both of these, the "overprepared" thing and the general insinuation that Hillary isn't human, are subtle propaganda points from the Republican strategists. So it's funny to see it in a thread about how the left wing makes right wing ideas unthinkable when literally the opposite has happened. Here's my controversial opinion that will get yelled at by most people: Hillary is a genuine and kindhearted person who deeply cares about making America better, and she was the best candidate for president from any party for decades—certainly far better than Bernie.)

> she was overprepared for the debate

Stealing the questions from the moderator (and still losing) is now being described as overprepared?

Clinton was described as overprepared for the debate the night of the first debate.

There was some amount of controversy over one such comment, by Chuck Todd (of NBC).

> Stealing the questions from the moderator

You're confusing two separate incidents, Donna Brazile giving one question from the primary debate to the Hillary campaign in March 2016, and Chuck Todd analyzing the first general debate in September 2016 and calling her "over-prepared". So, no.

Again, it's extremely funny how much false right-wing propaganda you're attempting to use in defense of the assertion that the left wing prefers orthodoxy to truth.

> it's extremely funny how much false right-wing propaganda you're attempting to use

I mean it's literally just what happened. Donna Brazille even said the reason she did it was because she didn't think Clinton was smart enough to be President on her own, and that she would be 'blindsided' by basic questions.

> The fact that something could be true doesn't make it any less false.

Again, what do you have that's as concrete or tangible as the inauguration attendance count (or State of the Union ratings) to show that Clinton's support of gay marriage (or for any of her other purported stances) is in contradiction to reality? I'm not arguing that you should approve of Clinton's flaws more than Trump's, just that the ones you cite are categorically different.

Your argument would be stronger if you cited the times that Clinton said things that were shown to be objectively and observably false.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/...

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/...

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